| A money manager for the ages |
Everything I needed to know about managing money I learned from... classic fiction? So asserts this thought-provoking article from the Wall Street Journal's Marketwatch column. Who are the suggested literary Midases and what do they espouse that could put you into the financial 1%?
- Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), on having the appropriate emotional detachment and perspectives about money
- Charles Dickens (Little Dorrit) and Anthony Trollope (The Way We Live Now), on avoiding bad investment decisions and fraudsters
- George Eliot (Middlemarch) and Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), on curtailing potential ruinous consumer credit
- Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol), on saving, not hoarding
- Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina), on performing due diligence and knowing the value of assets.
Okay, these historical folks may not have been a Rothschild or Morgan, but they certainly knew a thing about how emotions and circumstances can impact many outcomes in life, including wealth accumulation. So one might characterize these books as a holistic approach towards asset management, one which also confers wisdom on loads of other things (not to mention dispensing hours of entertainment). Therefore, instead of heading down to your local private banker, perhaps give the local library a try. An added benefit awaits you - you won’t get charged a 2% front-end load.
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